Indian firms continue rapid cloud migration, despite shortage of skilled individuals

Even as enterprises in India continue migrating data and processes to the cloud, they’re facing hurdles in terms of talent, security challenges and compliances. 

According to a new report by IBM, published on Wednesday, 66% of Indian business leaders said that their teams lack the necessary skills for managing the cloud applications, while 39% said that lack of technical skills is keeping them from integrating ecosystem partners into the cloud.

“The problem is that there is an overwhelming move to the cloud which is not being complimented by the availability of talent required. The pace of cloud adoption is hindered significantly because of the lack of availability of talents such as cloud architects, cloud engineers, and data architects,” said Monesh Dange, partner & regional consulting markets leader at EY India. 

He noted that the problem lies in distribution, availability and quality of skilled individuals. 

That said, Indian companies are still expanding teams and roles in this space. “While our research found the lack of cloud skills as a major challenge, it is encouraging to note that 81% of the Indian respondents said they are creating new positions and teams to fulfil the need for more cloud skills,” said Viswanath Ramaswamy, vice president, Technology, IBM India/ South Asia.

Security is another concern. The IBM report also shows that cybersecurity and data governance was a major concern for 50% and 49% of business leaders, respectively. It prevented them from integrating their business ecosystem into the cloud, the report said.

Howard Boville, head of IBM Cloud Platform warned that companies are facing a “growing threat landscape” that demands “holistic management” of their multi-cloud environment to avoid the risk of a disconnected cloud environment, which can be difficult to navigate and secure. 

EY’s Dange believes that though the maturity level of an organization is important, the onus also lies with the government. 

“The confidence and maturity level of the organization when the data is being stored outside is important. But it is also about the time required by the government to verify and certify the security protocols,” he added. 

Further, India’s upcoming regulations, including the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team’s (CERT-In) cybersecurity rules, released in April, have increased compliance burden for companies. “When a company is moving its computing infrastructure to the cloud, the focus shifts to data, as it is parting with data that it is supposed to be guarded and managed. That is where compliance challenges come into the picture,” said Dange. 

The IBM report, too, identified regulatory compliance as a major bottleneck, especially in highly regulated industries and markets. Around 57% of business leaders said that ensuring compliance in the cloud is currently too difficult, while 33% said regulatory compliance is a key barrier to integrating workloads across private and public IT environments.

The new CERT-In rules require cloud providers to maintain data for 5 years, among other things. “It requires cloud providers to ensure archiving, and data restoration in compliance with ensuring which data is required to be kept for how long. Because of regulatory reasons, cloud providers are storing the data in India,” added Dange.